The purpose of the move was to bring us closer to my mother’s family who were situated in and around Knoxville. In the early 1940s we moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was in charge of the shop at Reeder Chevrolet. At some point it became clear that WWII was ginning up and America would be drawn in. Soon we moved to Statesboro, Georgia, where he was in charge of the repair department at the dealership. My father Paul “Sanford” North was an auto mechanic at the Chevrolet dealership there.

I was born in the little town of Sweetwater, Tennessee, on June 28, 1938.